Yahoo Lifestyle 
One terminally ill mother is fighting for her right to die
In an interview with Katie Couric, on US woman suffering from terminal cancer talks about her wish to die peacefully and legally in her home in California.
Christy O’Donnell, 46, is a single mum fighting the state of California for her right to die. Last year, she was diagnosed with stage four cancer in her lung that has since spread to her brain, spine, rib and liver. Chemotherapy treatments have lost their effectiveness, and she’s expected to live only a few more months.
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A Los Angeles attorney, O’Donnell filed a lawsuit in May, asking the state of California to allow her doctor to prescribe life-ending medication without criminal prosecution so that she can end her life before her terminal lung cancer does. Now, a judge has ordered an expedited review of her suit, which will be heard later this month.
“If my liver fails, my stomach will become huge, painful, and distended,” O’Donnell tells Yahoo global news anchor Katie Couric in a new interview. “And with the bone tumours, there’s not really any medication they can give me that’s going to take away the pain.”
O’Donnell says she’s also at risk of dying of her lung tumour, which will essentially cause her to drown in her own fluids. “I grew up in Hawaii surfing,” she says. “I’ve been held down a long time. I know what that feels like, and to think about experiencing that scares me to death.”
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O’Donnell says she doesn’t want her death to be traumatic for her or her 21-year-old daughter, Bailey. “My biggest fear about my last moments on earth are that … I’m going to be in so much physical pain that it’s going to make my passing traumatic for me and traumatic for my daughter,” she says. “And that the whole rest of her life, her last moments of looking at me, touching me, and hearing my voice are going to be a horrible, terrible memory that she’s going to have to carry, rather than it being a loving memory of me.”
A preliminary motions hearing for O’Donnell’s suit will be held on July 24, her birthday.
This story originally appeared on Yahoo Health
